Jellyfish glow iridescently as they float seemingly weightless in the ocean. When exposed to the blue light, Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) in the Aequorea victoria Jellyfish will emit a green hue at around 480nm. Out of curiosity, Malte Gather and Seok-Hyun Yun, from Harvard University, wanted to see if they could make a laser out of this effect. The pair injected a human kidney cell with a specialized loop of GFP DNA. Placing the cell between two mirrors, standard laser configuration, they exposed it to blue light which started the effect. The light then bounced and amplified between the two mirrors, through the cell acting as a laser gain media, until the energy penetrated through one of the semi-transparent mirrors. The light emitted was a laser that could operate for several minutes without destroying the living kidney cell. Yun stated after demonstration, "Previously the laser was considered an engineering material, and now we are showing the concept of the laser can be integrated into biological systems."
The next step for the team is to create an internal body imaging technique based on this research. Yun continues, "We would like to have a laser inside the body of the animal, to generate laser light directly within the animal's tissue."
Eavesdropper
Picture via Nature Photonics and the Wellman Center of Photomedicine
